Tightly Cropped Trump Photo Triggers Makeover Rumors as Fans Zoom In on Swelling Around His Eyes and Wonder What Happened
A tightly cropped photograph of President Donald Trump is drawing renewed attention to how the 79-year-old looks on camera and what might be going on behind the scenes.
His entire face is not visible in the trimmed snapshot circulating online, which highlights the top half of his face.
Fan theories quickly shifted from curiosity to ridicule, with users openly accusing Trump of recently having cosmetic work done. Commenters fixated on his hairline, forehead, and his droopy-looking eyes, bluntly suggesting recent cosmetic procedures were behind his altered appearance.
Jokes about his overall appearance pretty much wrote themselves, framing the close-up as unsettling rather than humorous, describing his expression as empty or drained.
“Is there a disease that makes your eyes shrink?” a Threads user asked in response to the picture of Trump. Another said, “It’s all the swelling around his eyes.”
“His eyes aren’t shrinking, his head is expanding,” proclaimed a repulsed observer. One individual on the app focused on the grandfather of eleven possibly being worn out, offering, “The old fool is exhausted.”
In addition, one observer had a theory that the president underwent a cosmetic procedure on his eyelids. The person speculated, “I was thinking he had [blepharoplasty] so they looked [eerie] and the remaining fat blew up.”
Another who agreed added, “I did notice that his eyes were especially piggy and his undereye bags especially big yesterday.”
Blepharoplasty is a plastic surgery used to improve functionality and correct droopy eyelids, bags, and puffiness by removing or repositioning excess skin, fat, and muscle.
Even before stepping into the White House for two, nonconsecutive terms as President of the United States, Trump was an international celebrity who clearly valued how his image and likeness were presented in the media.
Accusations that Donald Trump has undergone cosmetic procedures have circulated for decades. During their highly publicized divorce in the early 1990s, his late first wife, Ivana Trump, claimed he had a scalp reduction — a surgical method once commonly used to address baldness. The procedure involves removing a section of bald scalp, typically at the crown, and stretching the surrounding hair-bearing skin to cover the area.
Ivana’s physician, Dr. Steven Hoefflin, reportedly performed the operation in 1990. The hair restoration procedure involves cutting out a bald spot and then sewing the remaining skin back together.
Ivana and Donald Trump attend the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in Flushing, Queens, circa 1988. pic.twitter.com/0mNXJs7so5
— MythoMAGA (@MythoMAGA) October 2, 2025
Investigative journalist Harry Hurt III’s 1993 book “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump” doubled down on the allegations that the real estate magnate needed surgical assistance to stop his hair from thinning.
“It’s obviously false,” Trump insisted about the scalp-reduction rumors, according to Daily Beast, which Newsday originally reported. “It’s incorrect and done by a guy without much talent… [Hurt] is a guy that is an unattractive guy who is a vindictive and jealous person.”
While Trump has denied getting work done in the operating room, he has not held back in slamming female adversaries for supposedly getting plastic surgery.
The billionaire businessman also infamously targeted veteran news anchor and wife of conservative pundit Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, 58, on X (then known as Twitter) over claims she had altered her appearance.
“I heard poorly rated [‘Morning Joe’] speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” Trump tweeted in 2017 about the MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) weekday morning show hosted by Brzezinski and Scarborough.
He continued in another post, “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a facelift. I said no!”
Once the second Trump administration came into power in January 2025 following his presidential election victory in 2024, a new surgery trend known as the “Mar-a-Lago face” has become fashionable among the right-wing elite.
Surgeons in Washington, D.C., told Axios that Beltway insiders are clamoring to get lip filler and Botox to fit the facial aesthetic now linked to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort located in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump brushing off speculation about being a scalp-reduction patient in 1993 has not prevented him from being the butt of hair loss jokes in 2025. This latest emphasis on the space around his eyes will surely ignite more spiteful trolling at the commander in chief’s expense.